Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, one of three Republican senators who ultimately voted "no" in July on a Senate bill to repeal Obamacare, expressed relief that there was finally an across-the-aisle dialogue about Obamacare.

"We can do a lot up here in the Capitol here in Washington, DC, but you all have to translate it on the ground and the fact that we haven't had this open dialogue, to this point in time, on this particular issue area, is I think part of what's taken us so long to get here," Murkowski said.

Having failed to repeal Obamacare, President Donald Trump has said his strategy would be to let the health law "implode."

The Congressional Budget Office released a report Thursday that predicts Trump administration policies on Obamacare could help it on its way by leading to rising premiums and decreased enrollment in individual insurance markets over the next year.

Without calling the administration by name, the report names several policies the White House is pushing when explaining why average Obamacare premiums will increase substantially in 2018.

So it looks like the Senate Health Committee failed to produce any bill by the 17th (or by the 18th)? I've found no such news online? Meanwhile, I see from Becky's link to Mark's column that insurers have to sign 2018 contracts by the 27th of this month? That's awfully soon...

I do note from jbr's link to the list of Senators on the Committee that 5 of its eleven Dem members are actually co-sponsors of the Medicare for All bill (that's Sanders in VT, Franken in MN, Whitehouse in RI, Baldwin in WI, and Warren in MA), but neither would I expect any of them to hold up work on this stop-gap measure for the ACA simply because they support an altogether different approach long-term.

Hopefully, we will see in the Committee's final product some at least minimal aspects that can allow for a smoother transition to single-payer sometime soon--like a public option, for starters.